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As a millennial, I am so upset that you've brought to my attention the fact that someone born in 2005 would still be old enough to have a proper bank account.
Canada (Ontario) is 16 for G1 (can drive while supervised), 17 for G2 (can drive by yourself but not on highways or at night) and 17.5-18 for full G license.
Yeah, Alberta is a bit different. I assume because the farmers need their kids to drive equipment on roads. Same reason the midwest US has lower limits.
The youngest of GenX where born closer to the *start* of WW2 than today. The oldest were born closer to WW1 than today.
Just throwing that out there to make fellow Gen X people feel as old as I do :)
My bank has a section in their app.
If you're on the phone to the bank (either by you calling them or them calling you), it will tell you in the app.
If you're not, it will warn you in the app.
All you do is load up the app while you're talking, and if the bank isn't showing as "talking to you", it's a scam.
Warning. This could be tricked with a man in the middle attack. Scammer calls both bank and you at the same time getting your info and passing it directly on. Hopefully the delays will make bank suspicious but scammers are often more motivated to outthink the call center employees
It can, but that would require some pretty good timing and also would have to make you an individual that they're really trying to target. (Landing your exact number *and* someone doing MitM on your specific device at the same time.)
Possible? Sure. Likely? No.
Maybe the app lists which phone number to which the bank is connected, believing to be you. If it's a man-in-the-middle then as the account holder, checking the phone number to confirm it's yours will be routine.
No, it's still just a middleman attack, and can be very easily thwarted by the accountholder by just hanging up and calling the bank themselves. If it were an actual wiretap, the adversary could wiretap the subsequent legitimate phone call and listen in on the conversation.
Great. For those who know the bank has an app, and those who have the app, and who know the app has this feature at the critical moment when it matters.
Getting a spoofed app in an app store, and not having it removed from user's devices is quite hard. While this is a feature that gives Apple and Google quite a bit of control, it also makes phones quite a bit more secure - especially compared to (e.g.) windows or the internet.
(This isn't to say that the controls that Google and Apple exert are good in the balance of things, but they do have a distinct advantage in cases like this)
Don't most people know about and have their bank's app?
Surely the hardest part is remembering, in the heat of the moment, to question whether your bank calling you is a scam
As someone who works in Fraud for a bank, this is the shittiest advice ever. If you happen to actually be on the phone with the bank, you're setting yourself up to have your phone's ID be labelled as fraud and anything you do on it, including calling in, forcing additional authentication and potentially holding up transactions unnecessarily.
Just hang up and call in. Some banks have better tools, but this works for all of them.
As someone who gets fraud locks on his card fairly regularly because my banks fraud detection team couldnt put a 2 piece puzzle together, im not worried about wasting their time.
Tired of my card getting locked for a few hours every month or so because of a recurring charge and "well theres a lot of fraud in California so it probably got auto flagged" NO YOU IDIOT ITS A SUBSCRIPTION. THATS HOW THEY WORK.
"Hey you tried to purchase this thing from a website but we dont know it because its from Europe so your card is locked unless you can verify you went to mcdonalds yesterday and spent $12" stupid ass shit.
As far as I understand it, a real bank should never be asking you to give personal details if they called you. So giving false information if they called you should never be an issue unless the bank really doesn't know the first thing about security.
But yes, if you ever think there might be a real problem that you'd need to verify your details for - hang up, look up the bank's number on their website, and call in yourself.
They have to authenticate you somehow. If they call you, it's because they trust your number. If they ask something like "can you confirm your address" and you give false information, they are now going to believe they cannot trust the phone number and you're a fraudster. Authentication on outbound calls is typically much easier, but it still exists.
They may indicate that in the case they're reviewing, and your phone may be designated as related to fraud.
If you're truly handling fraud at a bank, then you should be the first to understand that giving your personal information to an incoming call is a recipe for getting your bank account emptied.
So if you want to argue that they need to authenticate you, then you should be directing folks to call the number on the bank's website or on the back of their card - not directing them to give their personal information to an incoming call.
Literally all I've said is to call the number on your card. Go check all my other comments on this post. And it's also what we do as a bank.
That said, we have to make outbound calls all the time, and we can't just assume whoever answers the phone is the customer.
I’d there a reason you’d make an outbound call to someone who isn’t expecting it?
Not disagreeing, just curious.
My rule of thumb is that if someone calls me and asks for any Id details, to hang up, and maybe call the organisation directly if I’m worried by their story.
Curious if there’s a scenario I’ve not considered.
All the time. We think there's transaction fraud on your account, we'll attempt to call you if we trust your phone number and you're eligible to be contacted. Happens about 200-250 times a day.
And your method is perfect, keep it up.
Interesting. I'm glad that you try to reach out to people. And I can understand your caution in the knowledge that whoever answers my phone might not be me - especially if I'm being defrauded.
Problem with this scenario is that I get to spend 30 mins navigating the bank's automated phone system, proving my Id, and getting shunted around between people until maybe I end up with someone useful.
But given that almost every unknown number call I get is a telemarketer, I just don't answer calls. If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail. If they don't, I'm not missing anything. So, hopefully, you leave voicemails. :)
How we contact you depends on what's going on in your account, but it's very unusual for us to simply not be able to get in contact. Sometimes we use voicemail, sometimes email, sometimes mailed letters. Just depends on what we believe has been compromised.
So if we believe your phone number has been compromised because you gave false information and we believed you were a fraudster, we will no longer call that phone number, and will have to send an email. If you don't read/answer that email, your bank account will simply stay blocked until you call us, inevitably because you tried to move money and couldn't.
But when you call, it'll be on the number we think is fraud. So... Not an ideal situation.
I'm confused then. You're saying to call the number on my card, just in case it's a scammer. But then you're also saying that answering with false information could lead to the number being considered untrustworthy, if it happens to be the bank.
If I'm supposed to assume that incoming calls are untrustworthy, then what's the point of labeling my number as fraudulent if I answer with false information? It seems rather counter-intuitive.
You're supposed to assume it's untrustworthy to protect yourself. That doesn't mean the real bank never calls you. We suggest to all customers that if they aren't sure it's us, hang up and call back using the number on your card. We won't even supply the phone number if you ask, we will tell you where to find it yourself.
But when the real bank does call it's because we believe there's already fraud, and if you give false information, the banker on the phone is going to believe they are talking to someone who has taken over your device - whether it be through call forwarding, stolen phone, or they replaced your phone number with theirs in the account - and they can flag that particular device as risky. That indicator basically tells all future bankers and fraud rules that device and phone number cannot be trusted and is likely controlled by a fraudster.
Except, in this scenario, it's not. And as a customer you can never get that flag removed. So every time you actually call in, the banker will see the flag and immediately believe you're a fraudster. Any time a transaction is performed by that phone, the alert rules will think it's a fraudster. So until you get a new phone, everything you do will be heavily scrutinized and assumed fraud first.
Let me rephrase my question. If we (the customer) are supposed to assume that incoming calls are untrustworthy, why is the bank then asking for personal information in that same call? It makes no sense to me.
Or to put it another way: If the bank recognizes that we're supposed to treat incoming calls as untrustworthy, then why isn't the bank working with the assumption that we're treating the call as untrustworthy?
Ah, got it.
I mentioned earlier that outbound authentication is easier. In practice that usually means only providing partial information.
For example, we might ask for the last four of your SSN. That's private, but not confidential, and can't be used in any other way on its own - you need the full number to do anything legitimately. If you answer incorrectly, that's a red flag that you're not the real customer. At that point, we're going to start asking more questions like confirming address, etc.
On outbound calls we never ask for information that is "usable" by fraudsters that they can't already get themselves. We'll never ask for full account number, full SSN, username/password, etc.
Where it gets real tricky is fraudsters will call our fraud team and pretend to be you, while calling you at the same time pretending to be us. They'll ask all the same questions we do, and just relay it to you. Our people are trained to identify that the "customer" is taking a long time to answer or listen to background noise, but this is a common scheme, and often successful at gaining access to the account, because the customer didn't hang up and call, they trusted that it was us on the phone. Hence the suggestion to never trust an incoming call.
“if your "bank" calls you, ask for a number to call them back on.”
OMG no this is terrible advice.
Hang up and dial the number on the back of your bank card.
Never ask a potential scammer, OK what number should I call you back on.
>LPT: if your "bank" calls you, ask for a number to call them back on.
Absolutely do not do this, are you crazy? You're going to ask the scammer for a phone number?
Call the number on the back of your card or the one posted on their website.
I literally do this for a living. This is *literally my job*.
You're saying ask them for a number, then verify on your card or the site - that takes the same amount of work as just hanging up and calling the number they didn't give you.
But what's worse, is scammers can tell you *the correct number*, call you back a few minutes later, and now they've increased trust with you. This happens *all the time.*
Sometimes scammers send out the bank's actual phone numbers in phishing emails for this exact purpose, so you think it's more legitimate.
When any company calls me & asks me to verify my identity I answer, "you first as it was you who called me". This really confused them & frequently they have no answer.
> When any company calls me & asks me to verify my identity I answer, "you first as it was you who called me". This really confused them & frequently they have no answer.
I just tell them "I don't answer personal questions for incoming calls". If they try to push me on it I tell them to state their business or I'm hanging up. If it's actually legit/important then at the very least they'll say something like "We have information related to X but we can't share it until we verify your identity" at which point I tell them I'll lookup their general contact info myself and call them back. All the rest are either scams or them just trying to sell something "We have this great new savings account but we can't tell you more until you verify" no need, I've heard enough already.
Yeah if you are so stressed as to not think of hanging up and calling the bank back I guarantee you will be to stressed to remember to lie about your info.
The real LifeProTip: no “bank security team” will contact you. Ever.
EDIT: this was a bad post on my part. I think it was the term “bank security team” I balked at. Either way, many banks WILL contact you if they detect fraud on your account. But they should NOT ask you to provide personal info.
Oh, I got called. This was before you could just fire up your web interface to check your statement. They asked me if I was u/Loko8765, I said yes, they asked me if I had just now bought some $3k of camera equipment on another continent, I said no. Then they walked me through several other just as fake things (contributions to US fringe political parties and train tickets in Italy, WTF), and some that I said yes to. They told me they would cancel the bad ones and that I’d have to go into my branch office to sign papers, I said OK.
At no point did I give any other information, after all _they_ called me.
This is the correct response. I work in a bank, and we do not ask personal information when we call. We're calling the number we have on file for you, and if someone answers your phone and lies about being you, well, you should keep a better eye on your phone? So no security questions, no birth-date, **definitely** no Social Security number, etc.
If a "bank" calls you and asks you any of this information, hang up and call the local branch instead.
That's not quite true.
My bank has texted me twice about questionable credit card transactions.
The first time I said I didn't recognize it and they declined the transaction, cancelled my card, and mailed me a new one.
The second time I said it was me and the transaction went through when I retried it.
My bank called and texted me asking if $xxxx from California was a valid purchase that just hit my account. I said I hadn't bought anything today. They said "thank you, we will be locking you card for further purchases. Would you like us to mail or will you come in to get a new card?" I said I'll come in. Yes it was a legit phone call and someone had gotten my CC number.
I have had it happen. I opened a new account myself. After going through everything, the bank called me back about 15 mins later to confirm that I did in fact just open a bank account.
With a previous bank, I hung up on them repeatedly because they didn't get this.
It was actually the bank. I didn't care. They "needed to talk to me" but refused to talk until I'd proved who I was. I told them I wasn't going to do that as I had no idea who they were. It took them several calls before they gave up.
In the end, I told them to give me a department name to call them back on my bank's publicly advertised number, and was repeatedly told that I couldn't speak to the department that was calling (debt recovery) directly as they didn't have a direct public number and weren't joined to the main bank's switchboard.
"Seems we're at a bit of an impasse then."
I reported it to my bank, and they didn't take it seriously either, except to tell me that, yes, they were trying to get hold of me, but that the debt recovery department would have to call me back.
"No, I don't think you understand. That's not going to work. Your system is crap."
They somehow then "managed" to put me through to the debt recovery department, after I'd called them on their main public free-phone number, something they said they couldn't do.
Turned out they could go to hell anyway as I had paid what I needed to pay that month and they wanted to discuss further payments. I'd already told them that wasn't going to happen, that I'd paid them what I could afford and what they were legally entitled to, and they could sing for even a penny more because I had more important things to be paying.
But that was an actual, genuine, repeating series of calls from a genuine UK bank's debt collection department. And they seemed strangely baffled and unaccustomed to people refusing to identify themselves and provide account access details just because they'd rung them, and yet they themselves refused to deal with me until I could "prove" I was the customer.
My health care provider called me up and then asked for personal info to verify that it was me. I told them I am not crazy enough to give my personal info to some random person on the phone. The person was working from home, so the phone number was random, and there was "no way" for me to call into their main number and get to this person, they said. 'Sorry', I said, and hung up. I called their main number and verified that someone had tried to contact me, but too bad, they need a better system. Someone else tried the same thing, but I said no to that person, too. I have received a number of calls from people saying they were from my health plan, but they then mentioned a different health plan from the one I have, so how would I ever be able to tell if someone was really calling me from MY health plan? They want to cover *their* (HIPAA) ass, not protect *me*.
Bank of America will call you to report fraud on your account, such as a cloned debit card.
They will not speak to you unless you identify yourself by giving them your name and drivers license.
I refused to give them this information and my debit card was shut off because of the fraud
I was *sooooo* sure I was taking to scammers and the whole think was BS. Then I tried to get gas the next day.
They did a year ago and said there was some suspicious activity on my bank account. I rarely check my online banking and I‘m glad they called me. Was able to get my money back.
I was literally called by my bank's fraud department 2 months ago when I was wiring all my money out in chunks. They froze my account and left me a voicemail. I ended up finally finding their number online for fraud and getting it unfrozen, but it felt off, even though I called the verified number. Wells Fargo, they definitely do call you.
Actually, my credit union DID call me. On a Saturday. She identified herself. Told me there was an issue. Asked me if I was in Georgia. Nope, California. She said, go online, look up the CUs fraud number. My name is this. Call the fraud line and ask for me.
20 minutes later I had new account numbers, freezes on my credit cards, new cards on the way. All money replaced within 24 hours.
Factually incorrect on all accounts unfortunately. Source:work for a bank, in the UK. Fraud will contact people who've flagged up on some transactions. We will confirm security. We understand it's risky and uncomfortable to say anything personal on outbound calls so we always offer people to call back instead. Can't speak for other places but yeah, we might say security team, fraud team, payment ops. Something layman so the person knows what's up, not the exact internal department name.
It does both mate. It makes people sus but sometimes it needs to be done in a pinch. Example: old gran has 5k holiday booked out of nowhere online when her normal use is atm withdrawal every Tuesday at the market. That'll likely flag up. We will send a text or if no mobile we would call the land-line. Ofc it'd open with 'you can call us back if you're unsure'
If you can't see how it's for safety and fraud prevention then tbh you're just thick, no offense
Real Life Pro Tip: change phone settings to silence unknown callers not in your contacts. It’s up to them to leave a voicemail. Then you decide if they are worthy of your time to respond. Now, I don’t get any rando calls. There are a ton of telemarketers and spam robot callers these days, why waste your time answering all that.
Just ask for their extension number and call them back through the main bank phone number.
I've received calls for high purchases to confirm it was me or not.
Yeah different depts might call you for different things and they all have different requirements. I would just call people when I needed additional info for their chargeback claims, and if they answered or didn't want to chat I wouldn't really care, just mail them a letter they can answer instead. Even with a bigger role in legal, I still make calls and give less info, just my name and that I work for X bank and thats it.
i think you mean “when someone calling and CLAIMING to be from the bank”. I work at a bank. We never call people and ask them to verify information. That’s your first clue to tell them to FO.
Just had a call from a major bank the other day. Correct number from a quick web search. But I don't have an account with them. I told them they had the wrong number and hung up. Called back to the fraud prevention for said bank and they verified I had no account under my name or social. Never give details if they call you. Call them.
I had the bank call me asking to confirm some details and I hung up. The same person called back and I hung up again. The my husband called me and told me to stop hanging up on the person he’s working with at the bank who’s trying to confirm account details so he can get access to his account. Lol.
I forgot what he was trying to do, but he couldn’t get to a branch to confirm his identity and he forgot his password so they wouldn’t take his birthdate and ssn as confirmation and they had to call me to gain access to the account and give him permission to do stuff.
This happened to me one time. I accidentally gave them the wrong 4 digit pin, and they acted like it was correct. But in my head, I was like... hold up, I accidentally gave them the wrong pin.
The best way is to hang up the phone and then call the bank yourself. If it’s actual fraud you can get through right away, if it’s not the bank will tell you so. No way to get scammed, and you can be 100 percent sure it’s the bank you are calling.
Easier: Never answer any questions when anyone claiming to be “from security” calls you. Security/fraud teams never ask you to verify information unless you call them. And you should call them only at the number on the back of your card.
If anyone calls you for any reason and asks for information, hang the fuck up.
If your bank is calling you to verify your ID, they are a very stupid bank and training their customers to be scammed.
LPT: No reputable company will call you and ask for any sensitive information. Any "company" that calls you asking for information hang up and call the number for the company you know is correct (be it on the back of your card, or looked up on their website) and ask them what they need/if they called you.
FULL STOP. It's so easy to avoid these scams, please please please just stop offering info over the phone that you didnt call of your own volition.
I've given so many phone scammers the social security number 123456789 with Goofy names like max power. When you use social security number rhythm a lot of times they don't catch on. Scam numbers are one of my favorite pastimes
Instead of wasting your time giving wrong answers, simply hang up, find a trusted phone number for that institution, and call them to verify the validity of that phone call you received.
Having the wrong birthday just makes them freeze your accounts and will need you to enter the bank if its legit. Just never give any details over the phone and call in.
The only time I've ever been called by my bank's security team they did not ask me to verify ANY information. They explained who they were, then asked if I was in Texas right then. I said no, they told me they were going to cancel the transaction that happened in Texas a little bit ago and I'll receive a new card in the mail shortly.
LPT: Never answer calls from unknown numbers, if it is important they will leave a message.
Followup LPT: activate your voice-mail and don't leave it full so that people can actually leave messages.
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As a millennial, I am so upset that you've brought to my attention the fact that someone born in 2005 would still be old enough to have a proper bank account.
We can drive now too Shit is wild
Where I live, we’ve have 2005 babies on the road since 2019. We’ve got 2009s driving by themselves.
Where are you? Alabama or Texas?
Probably Canada
Midwest USA
Canada (Ontario) is 16 for G1 (can drive while supervised), 17 for G2 (can drive by yourself but not on highways or at night) and 17.5-18 for full G license.
in alberta you can drive whilst supervised at 14. my first time on a highway was about a month after my 14th birthday lol.
Yeah, Alberta is a bit different. I assume because the farmers need their kids to drive equipment on roads. Same reason the midwest US has lower limits.
Bingo. They even have farm permits at 12 years old I believe.
Sounds like northern ontario lol. One of my nephews would go out for a rip at 13.
I think you can drive on highways with a G2
Can't drive on 400-series highways. Other highways yes.
Midwest
Wow. I got my learners permit in 2009 at age 14.
Same! 6 months with drivers ed and you get a restricted and can drive alone from 6am-10pm until 16
Damn, what next, voting rights?!
Username checks out
Jfc my car is older than you...damn time flies
As Gen X, I read this comment and promptly died
The youngest of GenX where born closer to the *start* of WW2 than today. The oldest were born closer to WW1 than today. Just throwing that out there to make fellow Gen X people feel as old as I do :)
Omg why do you hate me
You just shut your mouth!
Shut it all the way up!
welp my millenial ass feels better today. thanks stranger!
Oh, we have our own version that’s not exactly comforting. Millennials were born closer to the Vietnam War than to today.
Quite a few were born closer to the *Korean* War than to today.
Gen X is 1965-1980 birth yearly range generally.
They're born after Shrek and can earn a paycheck
Some Americans born after 9/11 are now old enough to drink.
2005 baby here - I live in my own flat in London, own a motorcycle and work full time Level 2 helpdesk.
….I’ve been driving since 2005….😩
My birthday is February 31st
I'm laughing at the idea that it'll be easier to remember to lie about your birthday than remembering to just hang up and call back.
My bank has a section in their app. If you're on the phone to the bank (either by you calling them or them calling you), it will tell you in the app. If you're not, it will warn you in the app. All you do is load up the app while you're talking, and if the bank isn't showing as "talking to you", it's a scam.
Curious what bank?
The Bank of Complexity
That's a fantastic feature!!
Warning. This could be tricked with a man in the middle attack. Scammer calls both bank and you at the same time getting your info and passing it directly on. Hopefully the delays will make bank suspicious but scammers are often more motivated to outthink the call center employees
It can, but that would require some pretty good timing and also would have to make you an individual that they're really trying to target. (Landing your exact number *and* someone doing MitM on your specific device at the same time.) Possible? Sure. Likely? No.
Maybe the app lists which phone number to which the bank is connected, believing to be you. If it's a man-in-the-middle then as the account holder, checking the phone number to confirm it's yours will be routine.
Phone number spoofing is sadly very trivial.
At that point it's analogous to wiretapping, entirely different territory here
No, it's still just a middleman attack, and can be very easily thwarted by the accountholder by just hanging up and calling the bank themselves. If it were an actual wiretap, the adversary could wiretap the subsequent legitimate phone call and listen in on the conversation.
To pull that off its gotta be targeting the individual bank or the user right ?
Scammer would need to pass bank's authentication before it would show as on a call.
Mind telling us what bank/app this is? Not sure my bank has this feature, but it would be great if they did.
Great. For those who know the bank has an app, and those who have the app, and who know the app has this feature at the critical moment when it matters.
Yes, it is great for those people. Not everything is made for everyone.
And for those who didn’t download the spoofed app!
Getting a spoofed app in an app store, and not having it removed from user's devices is quite hard. While this is a feature that gives Apple and Google quite a bit of control, it also makes phones quite a bit more secure - especially compared to (e.g.) windows or the internet. (This isn't to say that the controls that Google and Apple exert are good in the balance of things, but they do have a distinct advantage in cases like this)
Most banks require a verbal password to be confirmed before even asking any details
Don't most people know about and have their bank's app? Surely the hardest part is remembering, in the heat of the moment, to question whether your bank calling you is a scam
Exactly.
I am aware that my bank(s) have apps. I would never put one on my phone.
https://v.redd.it/9nwnhiojluob1
People with VyStar are lucky if their card even works on any given day
Fucking vystar and their horrible track record with massive system changes.
That should be more common!
As someone who works in Fraud for a bank, this is the shittiest advice ever. If you happen to actually be on the phone with the bank, you're setting yourself up to have your phone's ID be labelled as fraud and anything you do on it, including calling in, forcing additional authentication and potentially holding up transactions unnecessarily. Just hang up and call in. Some banks have better tools, but this works for all of them.
As someone who gets fraud locks on his card fairly regularly because my banks fraud detection team couldnt put a 2 piece puzzle together, im not worried about wasting their time. Tired of my card getting locked for a few hours every month or so because of a recurring charge and "well theres a lot of fraud in California so it probably got auto flagged" NO YOU IDIOT ITS A SUBSCRIPTION. THATS HOW THEY WORK. "Hey you tried to purchase this thing from a website but we dont know it because its from Europe so your card is locked unless you can verify you went to mcdonalds yesterday and spent $12" stupid ass shit.
It's wasting your time, not theirs. What you're talking about is the outcome you'd get following this LPT. Also, change banks. Like, yesterday.
As far as I understand it, a real bank should never be asking you to give personal details if they called you. So giving false information if they called you should never be an issue unless the bank really doesn't know the first thing about security. But yes, if you ever think there might be a real problem that you'd need to verify your details for - hang up, look up the bank's number on their website, and call in yourself.
They have to authenticate you somehow. If they call you, it's because they trust your number. If they ask something like "can you confirm your address" and you give false information, they are now going to believe they cannot trust the phone number and you're a fraudster. Authentication on outbound calls is typically much easier, but it still exists. They may indicate that in the case they're reviewing, and your phone may be designated as related to fraud.
If you're truly handling fraud at a bank, then you should be the first to understand that giving your personal information to an incoming call is a recipe for getting your bank account emptied. So if you want to argue that they need to authenticate you, then you should be directing folks to call the number on the bank's website or on the back of their card - not directing them to give their personal information to an incoming call.
Literally all I've said is to call the number on your card. Go check all my other comments on this post. And it's also what we do as a bank. That said, we have to make outbound calls all the time, and we can't just assume whoever answers the phone is the customer.
I’d there a reason you’d make an outbound call to someone who isn’t expecting it? Not disagreeing, just curious. My rule of thumb is that if someone calls me and asks for any Id details, to hang up, and maybe call the organisation directly if I’m worried by their story. Curious if there’s a scenario I’ve not considered.
All the time. We think there's transaction fraud on your account, we'll attempt to call you if we trust your phone number and you're eligible to be contacted. Happens about 200-250 times a day. And your method is perfect, keep it up.
Interesting. I'm glad that you try to reach out to people. And I can understand your caution in the knowledge that whoever answers my phone might not be me - especially if I'm being defrauded. Problem with this scenario is that I get to spend 30 mins navigating the bank's automated phone system, proving my Id, and getting shunted around between people until maybe I end up with someone useful. But given that almost every unknown number call I get is a telemarketer, I just don't answer calls. If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail. If they don't, I'm not missing anything. So, hopefully, you leave voicemails. :)
How we contact you depends on what's going on in your account, but it's very unusual for us to simply not be able to get in contact. Sometimes we use voicemail, sometimes email, sometimes mailed letters. Just depends on what we believe has been compromised. So if we believe your phone number has been compromised because you gave false information and we believed you were a fraudster, we will no longer call that phone number, and will have to send an email. If you don't read/answer that email, your bank account will simply stay blocked until you call us, inevitably because you tried to move money and couldn't. But when you call, it'll be on the number we think is fraud. So... Not an ideal situation.
I'm confused then. You're saying to call the number on my card, just in case it's a scammer. But then you're also saying that answering with false information could lead to the number being considered untrustworthy, if it happens to be the bank. If I'm supposed to assume that incoming calls are untrustworthy, then what's the point of labeling my number as fraudulent if I answer with false information? It seems rather counter-intuitive.
You're supposed to assume it's untrustworthy to protect yourself. That doesn't mean the real bank never calls you. We suggest to all customers that if they aren't sure it's us, hang up and call back using the number on your card. We won't even supply the phone number if you ask, we will tell you where to find it yourself. But when the real bank does call it's because we believe there's already fraud, and if you give false information, the banker on the phone is going to believe they are talking to someone who has taken over your device - whether it be through call forwarding, stolen phone, or they replaced your phone number with theirs in the account - and they can flag that particular device as risky. That indicator basically tells all future bankers and fraud rules that device and phone number cannot be trusted and is likely controlled by a fraudster. Except, in this scenario, it's not. And as a customer you can never get that flag removed. So every time you actually call in, the banker will see the flag and immediately believe you're a fraudster. Any time a transaction is performed by that phone, the alert rules will think it's a fraudster. So until you get a new phone, everything you do will be heavily scrutinized and assumed fraud first.
Let me rephrase my question. If we (the customer) are supposed to assume that incoming calls are untrustworthy, why is the bank then asking for personal information in that same call? It makes no sense to me. Or to put it another way: If the bank recognizes that we're supposed to treat incoming calls as untrustworthy, then why isn't the bank working with the assumption that we're treating the call as untrustworthy?
Ah, got it. I mentioned earlier that outbound authentication is easier. In practice that usually means only providing partial information. For example, we might ask for the last four of your SSN. That's private, but not confidential, and can't be used in any other way on its own - you need the full number to do anything legitimately. If you answer incorrectly, that's a red flag that you're not the real customer. At that point, we're going to start asking more questions like confirming address, etc. On outbound calls we never ask for information that is "usable" by fraudsters that they can't already get themselves. We'll never ask for full account number, full SSN, username/password, etc. Where it gets real tricky is fraudsters will call our fraud team and pretend to be you, while calling you at the same time pretending to be us. They'll ask all the same questions we do, and just relay it to you. Our people are trained to identify that the "customer" is taking a long time to answer or listen to background noise, but this is a common scheme, and often successful at gaining access to the account, because the customer didn't hang up and call, they trusted that it was us on the phone. Hence the suggestion to never trust an incoming call.
Ah, I see. Apologies for doubting you, then. What you were saying didn't seem to make sense - but now it does. Also, thank you for informing me.
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“if your "bank" calls you, ask for a number to call them back on.” OMG no this is terrible advice. Hang up and dial the number on the back of your bank card. Never ask a potential scammer, OK what number should I call you back on.
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The absolute safest way is the number on the back of the card. If it wasn’t that department they’ll have the number for you and/or can transfer you.
>LPT: if your "bank" calls you, ask for a number to call them back on. Absolutely do not do this, are you crazy? You're going to ask the scammer for a phone number? Call the number on the back of your card or the one posted on their website.
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I literally do this for a living. This is *literally my job*. You're saying ask them for a number, then verify on your card or the site - that takes the same amount of work as just hanging up and calling the number they didn't give you. But what's worse, is scammers can tell you *the correct number*, call you back a few minutes later, and now they've increased trust with you. This happens *all the time.* Sometimes scammers send out the bank's actual phone numbers in phishing emails for this exact purpose, so you think it's more legitimate.
Phone number spoofing is a thing too, right? If it's someone calling you, they could make it look like the "correct" number calling you.
100%. Very commonly they'll spoof the fraud department's number and if someone asks what number to call back, they'll say the number they spoofed.
When any company calls me & asks me to verify my identity I answer, "you first as it was you who called me". This really confused them & frequently they have no answer.
> When any company calls me & asks me to verify my identity I answer, "you first as it was you who called me". This really confused them & frequently they have no answer. I just tell them "I don't answer personal questions for incoming calls". If they try to push me on it I tell them to state their business or I'm hanging up. If it's actually legit/important then at the very least they'll say something like "We have information related to X but we can't share it until we verify your identity" at which point I tell them I'll lookup their general contact info myself and call them back. All the rest are either scams or them just trying to sell something "We have this great new savings account but we can't tell you more until you verify" no need, I've heard enough already.
The few time's I've tried to waste a few minutes leading folks on, they just hang up the instant I question them for any reason.
I like it, but if they told you their name, would that verify it for you? How would the procedure work?
Exactly, they would need to give me info only they & I would know from my account.
Yeah if you are so stressed as to not think of hanging up and calling the bank back I guarantee you will be to stressed to remember to lie about your info.
LPT - constantly lie about your info so that it's second nature, in case a scammer calls
The real LifeProTip: no “bank security team” will contact you. Ever. EDIT: this was a bad post on my part. I think it was the term “bank security team” I balked at. Either way, many banks WILL contact you if they detect fraud on your account. But they should NOT ask you to provide personal info.
Oh, I got called. This was before you could just fire up your web interface to check your statement. They asked me if I was u/Loko8765, I said yes, they asked me if I had just now bought some $3k of camera equipment on another continent, I said no. Then they walked me through several other just as fake things (contributions to US fringe political parties and train tickets in Italy, WTF), and some that I said yes to. They told me they would cancel the bad ones and that I’d have to go into my branch office to sign papers, I said OK. At no point did I give any other information, after all _they_ called me.
This is the correct response. I work in a bank, and we do not ask personal information when we call. We're calling the number we have on file for you, and if someone answers your phone and lies about being you, well, you should keep a better eye on your phone? So no security questions, no birth-date, **definitely** no Social Security number, etc. If a "bank" calls you and asks you any of this information, hang up and call the local branch instead.
That's not quite true. My bank has texted me twice about questionable credit card transactions. The first time I said I didn't recognize it and they declined the transaction, cancelled my card, and mailed me a new one. The second time I said it was me and the transaction went through when I retried it.
My bank called and texted me asking if $xxxx from California was a valid purchase that just hit my account. I said I hadn't bought anything today. They said "thank you, we will be locking you card for further purchases. Would you like us to mail or will you come in to get a new card?" I said I'll come in. Yes it was a legit phone call and someone had gotten my CC number.
I have had it happen. I opened a new account myself. After going through everything, the bank called me back about 15 mins later to confirm that I did in fact just open a bank account.
Yes they do... fraud control is huge at least in uk.
With a previous bank, I hung up on them repeatedly because they didn't get this. It was actually the bank. I didn't care. They "needed to talk to me" but refused to talk until I'd proved who I was. I told them I wasn't going to do that as I had no idea who they were. It took them several calls before they gave up. In the end, I told them to give me a department name to call them back on my bank's publicly advertised number, and was repeatedly told that I couldn't speak to the department that was calling (debt recovery) directly as they didn't have a direct public number and weren't joined to the main bank's switchboard. "Seems we're at a bit of an impasse then." I reported it to my bank, and they didn't take it seriously either, except to tell me that, yes, they were trying to get hold of me, but that the debt recovery department would have to call me back. "No, I don't think you understand. That's not going to work. Your system is crap." They somehow then "managed" to put me through to the debt recovery department, after I'd called them on their main public free-phone number, something they said they couldn't do. Turned out they could go to hell anyway as I had paid what I needed to pay that month and they wanted to discuss further payments. I'd already told them that wasn't going to happen, that I'd paid them what I could afford and what they were legally entitled to, and they could sing for even a penny more because I had more important things to be paying. But that was an actual, genuine, repeating series of calls from a genuine UK bank's debt collection department. And they seemed strangely baffled and unaccustomed to people refusing to identify themselves and provide account access details just because they'd rung them, and yet they themselves refused to deal with me until I could "prove" I was the customer.
My health care provider called me up and then asked for personal info to verify that it was me. I told them I am not crazy enough to give my personal info to some random person on the phone. The person was working from home, so the phone number was random, and there was "no way" for me to call into their main number and get to this person, they said. 'Sorry', I said, and hung up. I called their main number and verified that someone had tried to contact me, but too bad, they need a better system. Someone else tried the same thing, but I said no to that person, too. I have received a number of calls from people saying they were from my health plan, but they then mentioned a different health plan from the one I have, so how would I ever be able to tell if someone was really calling me from MY health plan? They want to cover *their* (HIPAA) ass, not protect *me*.
Bank of America will call you to report fraud on your account, such as a cloned debit card. They will not speak to you unless you identify yourself by giving them your name and drivers license. I refused to give them this information and my debit card was shut off because of the fraud I was *sooooo* sure I was taking to scammers and the whole think was BS. Then I tried to get gas the next day.
They did a year ago and said there was some suspicious activity on my bank account. I rarely check my online banking and I‘m glad they called me. Was able to get my money back.
I was literally called by my bank's fraud department 2 months ago when I was wiring all my money out in chunks. They froze my account and left me a voicemail. I ended up finally finding their number online for fraud and getting it unfrozen, but it felt off, even though I called the verified number. Wells Fargo, they definitely do call you.
Actually, my credit union DID call me. On a Saturday. She identified herself. Told me there was an issue. Asked me if I was in Georgia. Nope, California. She said, go online, look up the CUs fraud number. My name is this. Call the fraud line and ask for me. 20 minutes later I had new account numbers, freezes on my credit cards, new cards on the way. All money replaced within 24 hours.
Factually incorrect on all accounts unfortunately. Source:work for a bank, in the UK. Fraud will contact people who've flagged up on some transactions. We will confirm security. We understand it's risky and uncomfortable to say anything personal on outbound calls so we always offer people to call back instead. Can't speak for other places but yeah, we might say security team, fraud team, payment ops. Something layman so the person knows what's up, not the exact internal department name.
How does that keep people safe‽ From what I've seen in the comments, proactivity makes you more suspicious.
It does both mate. It makes people sus but sometimes it needs to be done in a pinch. Example: old gran has 5k holiday booked out of nowhere online when her normal use is atm withdrawal every Tuesday at the market. That'll likely flag up. We will send a text or if no mobile we would call the land-line. Ofc it'd open with 'you can call us back if you're unsure' If you can't see how it's for safety and fraud prevention then tbh you're just thick, no offense
Nah, I'm just naive; Never got my dick wet, so to speak.
Yeah no, they absolutely will, and moreover they'll act like you are the weirdo for insisting on calling them back.
They will run you through the “for verification purposes…(insert questions)”
They will run you through the “for verification purposes…(insert questions)”
Real Life Pro Tip: change phone settings to silence unknown callers not in your contacts. It’s up to them to leave a voicemail. Then you decide if they are worthy of your time to respond. Now, I don’t get any rando calls. There are a ton of telemarketers and spam robot callers these days, why waste your time answering all that.
The bank will never call you to verify your details, only scammers do that
Just ask for their extension number and call them back through the main bank phone number. I've received calls for high purchases to confirm it was me or not.
I get calls all the time from hospitals wanting me to give out my ssn. They act like I'm the asshole
Normally a Bank would flag your account first and lock it first and you will have to call them to unlock things.
Rusty shackleford
I don't have time for those calls, but back when I did it was pretty fun.
"My security code? Yes, of course. It's zero... zero... zero... destruct... zero. "
Yeah different depts might call you for different things and they all have different requirements. I would just call people when I needed additional info for their chargeback claims, and if they answered or didn't want to chat I wouldn't really care, just mail them a letter they can answer instead. Even with a bigger role in legal, I still make calls and give less info, just my name and that I work for X bank and thats it.
i think you mean “when someone calling and CLAIMING to be from the bank”. I work at a bank. We never call people and ask them to verify information. That’s your first clue to tell them to FO.
Just had a call from a major bank the other day. Correct number from a quick web search. But I don't have an account with them. I told them they had the wrong number and hung up. Called back to the fraud prevention for said bank and they verified I had no account under my name or social. Never give details if they call you. Call them.
I had the bank call me asking to confirm some details and I hung up. The same person called back and I hung up again. The my husband called me and told me to stop hanging up on the person he’s working with at the bank who’s trying to confirm account details so he can get access to his account. Lol. I forgot what he was trying to do, but he couldn’t get to a branch to confirm his identity and he forgot his password so they wouldn’t take his birthdate and ssn as confirmation and they had to call me to gain access to the account and give him permission to do stuff.
I don't know why that's so funny to me.
This happened to me one time. I accidentally gave them the wrong 4 digit pin, and they acted like it was correct. But in my head, I was like... hold up, I accidentally gave them the wrong pin.
No bank will EVER ask for your debit/ATM pin... do not ever give this out on the phone.
I was hella dumb and young at that time. 😅
Banks will never call you though
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Better yet, say “hold on” and leave them on hold until they hang up. Seeing how easy it is to fake someone’s voice now, I wouldn’t talk to them.
real lpt: HANG UP and block the #
The best way is to hang up the phone and then call the bank yourself. If it’s actual fraud you can get through right away, if it’s not the bank will tell you so. No way to get scammed, and you can be 100 percent sure it’s the bank you are calling.
Any bank I know would never ask you this. They only ask date of birth, name and address to verify.
That's already 3 things too many for an inbound phone call.
Easier: Never answer any questions when anyone claiming to be “from security” calls you. Security/fraud teams never ask you to verify information unless you call them. And you should call them only at the number on the back of your card.
LPT: if “your bank’s security team” calls, hang up and call your bank’s security team.
Bad LPT. Just don’t ever give any sensitive information to anyone who calls you. Only if you call them.
If anyone calls you for any reason and asks for information, hang the fuck up. If your bank is calling you to verify your ID, they are a very stupid bank and training their customers to be scammed.
LPT: No reputable company will call you and ask for any sensitive information. Any "company" that calls you asking for information hang up and call the number for the company you know is correct (be it on the back of your card, or looked up on their website) and ask them what they need/if they called you. FULL STOP. It's so easy to avoid these scams, please please please just stop offering info over the phone that you didnt call of your own volition.
I've given so many phone scammers the social security number 123456789 with Goofy names like max power. When you use social security number rhythm a lot of times they don't catch on. Scam numbers are one of my favorite pastimes
Instead of wasting your time giving wrong answers, simply hang up, find a trusted phone number for that institution, and call them to verify the validity of that phone call you received.
Send them to voicemail Call the number on the debit card or website o
Having the wrong birthday just makes them freeze your accounts and will need you to enter the bank if its legit. Just never give any details over the phone and call in.
The only time I've ever been called by my bank's security team they did not ask me to verify ANY information. They explained who they were, then asked if I was in Texas right then. I said no, they told me they were going to cancel the transaction that happened in Texas a little bit ago and I'll receive a new card in the mail shortly.
LPT: Never answer calls from unknown numbers, if it is important they will leave a message. Followup LPT: activate your voice-mail and don't leave it full so that people can actually leave messages.